veryone in the forest knows about Belladonna―that tall, beautiful plant whose berries are so delicious that they’re forever being gobbled up. Day after day, poor Belladonna is nibbled at until there’s almost nothing left of her. But unlike the animals who can leap, climb, or fly away, Belladonna, being a plant, is firmly rooted in place. So what’s a plant to do to survive?

This is the story of how Belladonna learns to harness her own chemical powers to protect herself and her descendants . . . and how she learns from a great cast of plant and animal characters―culminating in a dandy pheasant―that no one ever survives alone.

This one-of-a-kind picture book is gorgeously illustrated by Esmé Shapiro with wit and humor, and has an astonishingly epic framing that carries Belladonna across eons into her final, powerful form!